Jo Martin: Sugar can be like an addiction

Comments (0)In the light of debates about cutting down on sugar, Jo Martin, clinical director at Mapperley Park Clinic, says we may be more addicted to it than we think

LAST week in these pages, Dr Ian Campbell argued that the current concerns about sugar intake were too narrow and failed to take into account the other key areas of exercise and fat intake.

Well, with the 2007 prediction that, by 2050, half the UK population would be obese now looking to be a serious underestimate, the picture looks bleak. A report in 2012 confirmed that already 26% of the UK population is obese, with a further 41% of men and 33% of women classed as overweight.

It certainly used to be the case that we were allowed to eat sugar as long as we didn't eat fat.

Clinical trials showed that fat was the enemy and that eating too much put us at higher risk of obesity and heart attack. Low-fat varieties of all food types were hailed as the magic answer and we consumed them in huge quantities.

So what changed? Further research suggested that fat is not as bad as we suspected and that sugar is actually the villain of the piece.

But is this right? Some opinions suggest that the trials which followed high-fat diets, and documented the rise in heart incidents and other issues, failed to take into account the incidence of high sugar levels, smoking and other factors in the same individuals.

Brain scans carried out by Nicole Avena, a neuroscientist working on the theory that sugar is clinically addictive, demonstrated that the reward centres of the brain "light up" with sugar in a similar way to the effect elicited by hard drugs. Other trials have shown that laboratory rats, once made sugar-dependEnt, will actively choose sugar over cocaine as a reward. Avena also believes that some people are so sugar-addicted that "coming off it" can cause withdrawal symptoms.

So why are we, as a nation, so keen to consume this product in such huge amounts? For years we have eaten low-fat varieties of everything, without realising that, if you take out the fat, you take out the taste in many cases. The answer has been to replace the taste with sugar, and so most of our processed foods are laden with it.

Many so-called "slimming" foods contain more calories overall than the normal version. We have been hoodwinked.

You might think that the Government would want to educate us and improve the health of the nation, but apparently not. Do they know something we don't?